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Meta Times Ahead for ‘Supernatural’ Season 7 and Beyond

By now, Supernatural should be as synonymous with the term ‘meta’ as its title is with the word ‘paranormal’. After giving fans ride-after-ride on the meta side of things – especially with last season’s meta-tastic episode ‘The French Mistake’ – showrunner Sera Gamble says there’s plenty more meta in store for season 7.

Last season, it seemed as though the Supernatural crew had taken meta as far as it could have possibly gone – having Sam and Dean play Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, playing Sam and Dean Winchester on the set of the Supernatural television show. While the episode was thoroughly entertaining, good for a lot of laughs (and some talkback confusion), it seems as though season 7 will also see at least one of the meta episodes now practically expected from the series.

Though fairly split amongst fans in the love-it-or-hate-it category, the meta episodes of Supernatural have been some of the most memorable and well-written of the entire series. In fact, with episodes like the aforementioned ‘The French Mistake,’ ‘The Monster at the End of the Book’ and the McG-centric ‘Hollywood Babylon’ (among others), it would be worth saying Supernatural has all but mastered the art form.

So, with the series’ seventh season set to debut on The CW this fall, fans should look forward to (at least) one more trip down meta lane.

According to showrunner Sera Gamble, ‘The French Mistake’ will be hard to top, but it only takes one solid pitch.

"We have not put the kibosh on meta; it's completely about somebody pitching a story that would work for us."

“We set a pretty high bar, but hey, I thought we were never going to be able to do meta again long before ‘The French Mistake.’ And then that got pitched, and we had to do it, of course. I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point in Season 7 or beyond, someone pitches something that enables us to do a fun episode like that again.”

For now, it sounds like the creative staff behind Supernatural is thinking of ways to one-up the mastery of their season 6 meta masterpiece, but a suitable successor could possibly be waiting in the wings.

Ackles and Padalecki in 'Hollywood Babylon'

While the show has bigger issues to address after season 6 (such as Castiel’s divine upgrade), it’s nice to know that Gamble, Padalecki and Ackles (along with the rest of the Supernatural team) are willing to do these entertaining, one-off episodes that give brief respite to the increasingly serial nature of Supernatural.

Perhaps the lion’s share of the credit should be given to scribe and executive producer Ben Edlund (Firefly, Angel) – for not only blessing us with his creation The Tick, butfor writing the meta episodes ‘Hollywood Babylon’ and ‘The French Mistake’.